


The Soldier and the Violin

by OctarineSparks



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: AU, But not quite, Gen, M/M, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 19:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctarineSparks/pseuds/OctarineSparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All is lost in war, but there is a hero to save the music. A short Sherlock ghost story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soldier and the Violin

_We left behind those who would destroy themselves with war... Ours was to be a world of peace, of music, of art, of enlightenment. All that was petty, all that was mundane, all that was contemptible would have no place in our world..._

No one knew just what had kick started the war. Unlike so many other needless conflicts, conflicts started from the highly polished desks of bureaucrats, who ordered soldiers around as though they were made of tin, this one started somewhere else. It began as a wave of unrest, expelled like a violent spasm of the underbelly, the walked-upon and the loathed. The seed of hate grew rapidly, twisting gnarled roots around the hearts of lesser men, who took it upon themselves to cast the first stones. And oh, what mighty throws they were.

The working classes turned against one another, those above them seemingly too impossible a target to hit, but the country was built on the weathered shoulders of its workers, the machine lubricated well with their blood. And when too much of this blood had been spilled, wasted and washed into the gutters, the gears of Britain ground to a halt, and she was forsaken.

Everything was death, and the avoidance of the same. Boys were trained to fight as soon as their hands were strong enough to cradle the butt of a rifle. The girls were right behind them, taking bullets to the places where their babies should have been.

The class lines blurred into meaninglessness. The heads of state were reduced to refugees, made to fight in their torn and bloody three piece suits, using guns instead of ink to make their presence felt.

A civil war, they called it, but there was nothing civil about it. Cities fell in a matter of days, and Britain's favourite son was a husk of smoking landmarks by the winter. London had fallen, for the size of the armies needed bigger battlegrounds upon which to slay one another.

However, some remained. Those not able to fight, or those who were unwilling. It was not a cowardice, and yellow streak of pacifism that kept their hands clean. Fighting was by far the better option, as the greatest resource Britain now held was the opportunity to loot the pockets of one's fallen foes.

Instead it was their minds that stilled their hands. The desperate need to preserve so much history and culture, to hold on to all that had once made Britain Great. While buildings burned and people screamed in white hot agony, artists carried on with their most important work. Stretched canvasses depicting scenes of horror and gore, all done out in oils and chalk, were held aloft like shields, and promptly shredded to pieces.

And yet, there was a man.

While gunfire deafened those all around, he played. And as a brief reprieve created a silence while guns were reloaded, the faint strains of the violin could still be heard, a haunting that chilled all those around, exacted by the ghost of Baker Street.

To hear Bach's melodies floating through the scorched and choking air was enough to drive a man mad, to think that finally that bullet with his name on had pierced his heart, and he had died to be welcomed into the Golden Kingdom, his soul carried on the music of the angels.

But not so for one soldier, for whom ghost stories were a symptom of a childhood lost long ago, another world and another life away. Yes, the ghost called to him, but it called him home.

It was never desertion; it wasn't that kind of war. You picked up your gun and you fought until you were out of shells, or else out of heartbeats, and then you waited for fresh ammunition or reincarnation, whichever came first. There was no order, and even the sides were not clearly defined. Every man for himself, but, in the case of this particular soldier, it was not so simple.

Not once did he walk through the gaping maw of Baker Street, the door now fragments that had been scattered to the wind. Instead he stood outside, a sentinel for the ghost, for the music, warding off all those who sought to put an end to the haunting violin that made them feel they were going crazy, and made them talk to God.

Days passed, as did the weeks. The soldier slept in a shelter made from metal and plastic, soothed to sleep each night by the constancy of the music. He wondered if the ghost could see him, if it knew he was standing guard, as sometimes the melody would slow in time with his breathing, settling in his heart like a balm.

Upon waking, the soldier would panic, terrified he had failed in his quest to preserve the ghost and it's wonderful sounds, but barely a moment would pass before the air was filled with the sound of gentle strings. The violin became his rhythm, and his body shunned circadian convention in favour of a sweeter mistress.

The war raged, but the music never faded. And the soldier never abandoned his post, fighting for the pure, the untainted, an army of one against the vulgarity of humanity.

A bullet, then, to end his life and relieve him of his duty. He bled into the dust of the pavement with a thousand apologies upon his lips, and no poppies ever grew there.

The ghost was all but vanquished, and the music never flowed from Baker Street again.

Never forget the story of the ghostly violin, and the brave soldier who died to keep it. Perhaps the ghost plays forever more, not in this life but the next, to make sure the soldier's eternal rest is at least an untroubled one.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote is from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, which has enough Sherlock Holmes references to warrant a read, and even if didn't I would still highly recommend it.


End file.
